On 9 May 1998 21:11:00 GMT, in humanities.philosophy.objectivism Jim
Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: >In <6j2d6c$3d...@nntp2.ba.best.com> "Samantha Atkins" ><saman...@theLove.org> writes: > Remember, reality is always >>the final arbiter. Your philosophy cannot chuck out reality without >>invalidating itself. Reality is the foundation of philosophy, not >>the other way around. >Oh, what a mouthful there...thank you! Believe it or not, that's about >ALL I've been trying to say for about two years now, at least on the >topic of why I think the ARI has abandoned Objectivism. You've said it >far more clearly, with about 1/100,000 the verbiage and none of the >caustic bite.
Dear Jim,
You're quite right of course. What Samantha Atkins said was a real mouthful. Brief, concise and to the point.
Whether you are aware of it or not you HAVE been saying the same thing yourself for quite some time though not in exactly the same way. At least from my way of reading you.
>Objectivism as a philosophy MUST adhere (adjust, conform) to reality, >or it automatically invalidates itself. What a concept...nice job! >jk
Having said this my chief problem is do I see and understand reality as it is ?
If there can be one reality for you - or anybody else - and another for me then that gives us two different philosophies.
Since even the most briliant of human minds has its limits then this is easily conceivable.
Of course there can only be ONE ABSOLUTE reality which doesn't really solve the problem since we are probably both convinced that we, you or I, have the true reality.
Another thing I've been meaning to ask you for quite some time: what is ARI ? The Ayn Rand Institute perhaps ? And why is it so important ? Is it the official mouthpiece of Objectivism ?
In <3558adbe.1278...@mailhost.worldnet.fr> tmich...@worldnet.fr writes: >Having said this my chief problem is do I see and understand reality >as it is ?
Yes and probably.
>If there can be one reality for you - or anybody else - and another >for me then that gives us two different philosophies.
There CAN'T be one reality for one person, and another for another. There may only be different interpretations of the same reality. That's why Objectivism is built on the primacy of existence, rather than the primacy of consciousness. The former leaves a possible way out; the latter doesn't.
>Since even the most briliant of human minds has its limits then this >is easily conceivable.
Literally, it's not conceivable. What's conceivable is to switch the meaning of certain words--like "reality" or "existence"--and devise fantasies which render them as alterable through consciousness.
The fact that even the most brilliant of minds may differ on their understanding of reality, does not affect the fact that the reality itself stays the same.
>Of course there can only be ONE ABSOLUTE reality which doesn't really >solve the problem since we are probably both convinced that we, you or >I, have the true reality.
That's true---it doesn't solve the problem of knowing what that actual reality is, but it DOES solve the problem of trying to figure out whether it actually exists.
>Another thing I've been meaning to ask you for quite some time: what >is ARI ? The Ayn Rand Institute perhaps ?
Yes.
>And why is it so important ?
It's important because it has a very large influence both on how Objectivism is perceived by non-Objectivists, and even more importantly on how Objectivism is represented to those who find Rand's novels very appealing and meaningful.
The ARI gets "first crack" through two means, neither of which are built on their own accomplishments. First, there's those silly green cards prominently placed in the novels. Don't get me wrong---they own the rights, and are free to try to get "customers" any way they want. If it were me though, I'd do it much less conspicuously, thus allowing the words of Rand to have greater prominence than the ad. Long before I knew anything about the "Objectivist movement," I was hesitant at even giving away copies of her books, since the cards in the middle are the first thing noticed, and make it readily appear that the books are part of some cult movement. I doubt that I'm alone in this, which means that there are plenty of people who have not read Rand that might have, had others not wished to appear so cult-like. OTOH, there are surely contributors to the ARI who wouldn't have been, had the cards not been thicker than the pages of the book and in the middle. I guess it's just a question of priorities. [Though I'd like to hear Betsy explain why the ARI would want THOSE "customers" anyway!]
Then there's the fact that a web-search of "Ayn Rand" or a peek at the most public FAQs will inevitably direct one to the ARI website. Also, there's the question of various ARI-oriented organizations sharing mailing lists, even without notifying the people on the list. Both of these factors build heavily upon the fact that many ARIans, even when pretending to objectively discuss Objectivism, conveniently ignore (read: evade) the fact that non-ARI Objectivist organizations exist. Yeah, I know...it's a "question of sanction." What isn't, to the ARI?
Thankfully, the web factor has greatly declined over the past few years, with the development of "The Objectivist Ring" and gaining prominence of the IOS and other Objectivist organizations.
Again, none of this is blatantly immoral or illegal; I'm just trying to explain HOW the ARI has gained such importance in the Objectivist movement. The fact that Rand made a SECOND error at trying to name someone her "intellectual heir" didn't help matters either. You should hear what some ARIans have to say about her first "intellectual heir!" Apparently, they're of the opinion that the same action can be a terrible mistake one day, and a magnificent feat the next.
As to how the ARI has greatly MISUSED its position...well, I've gone into pretty extensive detail on that; I'll give it a break this trip.
>Is it the official mouthpiece of Objectivism ?
Yeah, like Bill Clinton is the official mouthpiece for the American Ideal. JUST like that, in fact!
Philosophy as such _is_ the foundation for all science, whether or not any particular philosophy contains errors. In Objectivism, the law of identity _is_ an axiom, and it's all you need to know to refute claims about anything actually being infinite.
To use discoveries by science as "an important" check is fine, but it isn't necessary. All you need to _prove_ a philosophy true is what you can get using your own unaided senses, and your own mind. You don't need the specialized machines and tools of science. And as I said, _no_ scientific discovery could _ever_ prove that any actual thing is infinite. That's because doing so would invalidate the law of identity, which is a principle upon which science depends. Invalidate the law of identity with science, and you invalidate the science (and all other knowledge) in the same instant.
Reality certainly is the foundation of philosophy - but then I never claimed otherwise.
Samantha Atkins wrote in message <6j2d6c$3d...@nntp2.ba.best.com>... >Mark Peter's writes: >>The phrase describing the universe's size that I've read in books on >>cosmology (e.g., Hawking's) is "finite, but unbounded". Regardless, >>referring to scientific evidence on this can only corroborate, not refute, >>the fact (from the law of identity) that no actual entity or attribute can >>be infinite. Philosophy is the foundation of science, not the other way >>around. >Assuming that one's philosophy is in fact correct. However, mistakes >could have been made at any stage of philosophical reasoning beyond the base >axioms. Thus the actual evidence found in reality through science is an >important check. Remember, reality is always the final arbiter. Your >philosophy cannot chuck out reality without invalidating itself. Reality >is the foundation of philosophy, not the other way around.
>Depending on the total mass of the universe, there >are three outcomes:
>1) Gravity exceeds the expansion, leading to a "Big Crunch".
>2) The mass is "just right", so that the universe >reaches a finite, constant size.
>3) The universe expands forever.
>If 3) is the case, and no other fundamental limit is >reached, then time would be open-ended, and there >would be no upper limit on the size of the universe.
Ah. But at any particular time, T, after the Big Bang, the universe is guaranteed to be at a finite size. This was all I was trying to assert.
Mark A. Peters wrote in message <6jd8u7$dk...@cdshub.cdc.com>... >Philosophy as such _is_ the foundation for all science, whether or not any >particular philosophy contains errors. In Objectivism, the law of identity >_is_ an axiom, and it's all you need to know to refute claims about anything >actually being infinite.
Can you please illustrate what precisely about the law of identity actually mandates that an existent cannot be of infinite size, in the sense of being immeasurable and uncountable much like the simple infinity of the natural numbers in mathematics? The universe, while of finite size at any moment, can be argued with some justification to be of countably infinite extent.
A question I don't know how to approach with my limited scientific knowledge: In the infinite gravity well of a black hole wouldn't the acceleration due to gravity be infinite and thus would not velocities far in excess of a mere finite value like c, the speed of light, be attainable? Just a curious question way too late at night.
> Can you please illustrate what precisely about the law of identity actually > mandates that an existent cannot be of infinite size, in the sense of being > immeasurable and uncountable much like the simple infinity of the natural > numbers in mathematics? The universe, while of finite size at any moment, > can be argued with some justification to be of countably infinite extent.
I think not. Countably infinite referes to the cardinality of a set of objects that can be put in one to one correspondence with the set of integers. Are there infinitely many of any kind of thing in the physical cosmos? I have seen no evidence to that effect.
>But at any particular time, T, after the Big Bang, the universe is >guaranteed to be at a finite size.
Not true. If the universe is bigger than any finite size, then it will always have been bigger than any finite size. At any time the observable universe is finite.
Think of the big bang not as the time when the universe's size approaches zero, but as the time at which the universe's density tends to exceed any finite value.
Tom Clarke
P.S. In this post I have avoided the I-word, using instead the mathematicians definitions underlying their use of the I-word.
>Are there infinitely many of any >kind of thing in the physical cosmos? I have seen no evidence >to that effect.
Since you are a finite being you will never see such evidence. However, using your mind you could identify evidence that contradicted the finiteness of the cosmos.
>>Are there infinitely many of any >>kind of thing in the physical cosmos? I have seen no evidence >>to that effect.
>Since you are a finite being you will never see such evidence. >However, using your mind you could identify evidence that >contradicted the finiteness of the cosmos.
Each of your two sentences is specific and not subject to multiple interpretations. And they utterly contradict each other.
"Being finite, you will never do A" plus "You could do A", where A = "identify evidence contradicting finiteness".
>>Since you are a finite being you will never see such evidence. >>However, using your mind you could identify evidence that >>contradicted the finiteness of the cosmos. >Each of your two sentences is specific and not subject to >multiple interpretations. And they utterly contradict each other.
No they don't. You are just thinking too narrowly, but I think I may not have been precise enough, as well. Let me be even more specific and give some examples of evidence that a human could identify that would contradict finiteness of the cosmos.
If the universe is finite then as observations are made at larger and larger distances there are definite consequences for the number of galaxies observed (the number will decrease). Imagine trying to find out whether the earth if finite (spherical) or not finite (flat) by counting the trees at a given distance from your house. Assuming that trees grow at a constant density, you will find that the number of trees at 100 miles will be less to times the number of trees at 10 miles distance because of the curvature of the earth. Astronomers do the same thing with stars. If they find that the number of galaxies at 100 billion light years are 10 times thenumber at 10 billion light years then they can say (identify) that the size of the universe is greater than thus and so size. This process could be repeated with greater precision or at greater distances to conclude that the universe is even bigger still.
So I should have said For any given value of the size of the universe, using your mind you could identify evidence that shows the universe is bigger than that value.
Returning to your statement:
>"Being finite, you will never do A" plus "You could do A", >where A = "identify evidence contradicting finiteness".
In my first statement, A="infinitely many of any kind of physical thing".
In my second statement A= "identify evidence contradicting finiteness", as you say.
Note that the first explicity includes "infinite" the second does not. To more precise version of my second statement has A="identify evidence contradicting any specific value of the size of the cosmos".
I am going to take a different tack from now on in my battle to convince Objectivists of the consistency of actual infinity with A=A. I will not mention infinity explicity and only speak of finite things. This is actually the great discovery of Cantor and other 19/early 20th century mathematicians. That you can make use of the concept of infinity without actually talking about it.
A purely mathematical example is the Dirac delta function. This is a very useful "fictional" function. A physical circuit like an amplifier has a think called an impulse response that when convolved with the input signal gives the output signal. Calculationally it is convenient to have an impulse response for the ideal perfect amplifer - the mythical amplifying piece of wire that audiophiles speak of. Such an impulse response would be Dirac's delta function, a function with a value of infinity at zero time and a value of zero everywhere else. Well engineers and physicists seized on this impossible function and used it for years to design and analyze real things with great success. Mathematicians were horrified. No function can have an infinite value at a point. So they rolled up their sleeves and defined the delta function in terms of a sequence of ordinary finite functions. each function in the sequence more peaked and more narrow than the last. Using such sequences they proved that the delta function sequence behaved just like the impossible infinite valued function that Dirac thought up.
So in Objective terms the delta function is a concept of method. It is also the impulse response of a piece of wire so in a sense it is an existent.
If you are still with me. I think the difference is epistemology versus ontology. If A=ontologically infinite then not A=ontologically finite. if B=evidence for infinititude is impossible but not B=evidence for finiteness is possible.
Since existence is primary I don't see how the limitations of epistemology can constrain ontology.
In article <6j2gon$...@sjx-ixn11.ix.netcom.com>, Jim Klein
<rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > In <6j2d6c$3d...@nntp2.ba.best.com> "Samantha Atkins" > <saman...@theLove.org> writes:
> >Mark Peter's writes:
>>Philosophy is the foundation of science, not the other way around.
Yes!
> >Assuming that one's philosophy is in fact correct.
No, even a false philosophy grounds, in a false way, science. Each philosophy causes a particular science. Eg, Materialism causes behaviorism. Aristotles philosophy caused classical science. Kants philosophy caused scientific relativism, subjectivism, skepticism. Eg, Aristotle's philosophy, w/its metaphysics of identity and causality, did not cause QM physics.
>>However, > >mistakes could have been made at any stage of philosophical reasoning > >beyond the base axioms.
Philosophical error causes scientific error.
>> Thus the actual evidence found in reality
> >through science is an important check.
Youre begging the question of the metaphysical and epistemological status of scientific observation. All science is an application of some philosophy.
> Objectivism as a philosophy MUST adhere (adjust, conform) to reality, > or it automatically invalidates itself.
Obj conforms to reality as objectively understood, not as subjectively felt. €€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€ I fought the Logos and the Logos won. ODYSSEUS ...the silly dead... HOMER Reason is man's basic means of survival. AYN RAND --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Tracking Marxist dialectical revolution: ZigZag Radically systematic radical metaphysics: Existence 2 http://home.att.net/~sdgross --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Stephen Grossman Fairhaven, MA, USA sdgr...@att.net €€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€
Samantha Atkins wrote in message <6jeibq$cb...@nntp2.ba.best.com>... >Mark A. Peters wrote in message <6jd8u7$dk...@cdshub.cdc.com>... >>[...] >Can you please illustrate what precisely about the law of identity actually >mandates that an existent cannot be of infinite size, in the sense of being >immeasurable and uncountable much like the simple infinity of the natural >numbers in mathematics? [...]
This has been done in this newsgroup about a thousand times, and it's been done by Leonard Peikoff in OPAR far better than I'll do here.
The law of identity says that everything (every entity, attribute, etc.) is what it is, is something specific, something definite. To be is to be _something_ - you cannot have the "it" without the "is" (or vice versa) in "it is". Existence and identity are not two separate facts, but two different perspectives on the same fact. The "is" in "it is" differentiates a thing from nothing, while the "it" differentiates the thing from other things.
To claim that the size of something (for example) is infinite is to say that no matter what specific size you name, the thing in question is bigger. Used in this sense, "infinity" is not a number, it is not specific, not definite - i.e., it is a quantity with no _identity_, which is a violation of the law of identity, and hence impossible. Put another way, such a claim is an attempt to say about a thing's size that "it is" without the "it".
>Having said this my chief problem is do I see and understand reality >as it is ?
>If there can be one reality for you - or anybody else - and another >for me then that gives us two different philosophies.
There cannot be different realities for you and me. There can be different perceptions and understanding of the underlying reality. Man's mode of knowledge is not by nature free of all possibility of error. Knowledge is contextual; it depends on the context of one's past thinking, the facts at one's disposal and the care with which one thinks. These factors are just a brief survey of the context. Mistakes can be made in the process of understanding reality. That is why a common, objective reality and letting that reality be the final arbiter in all disagreements between men is essential. Without a common objective reality there is no meaning in talking of correct or incorrect. Correct or incorrect with reference to what? Without a common objective reality there would be no way of reaching any rational agreement or for supporting any conclusion (human rights for example). If you and I disagreed we would have no choice but to leave each other severely alone and if that were not possible then we would have no choice but to come to blows to settle our disagreement.
Besides honest errors one can practice evasion and the refusal to know. One can also have greatly wrecked (or had wrecked by the culture) one's conceptual machinery and have a substantial job of rebuilding to do.
>Since even the most briliant of human minds has its limits then this >is easily conceivable.
DIsagreement is conceivable. Different realities is not.
>Of course there can only be ONE ABSOLUTE reality which doesn't really >solve the problem since we are probably both convinced that we, you or >I, have the true reality.
Hardly. Relaity is not a possession but the axiomatic basis of our very being. I am only able to know whether I have done my honest best to apprehended reality in specific matters that are of concern to me. I can know the level of my integrity, in other words, but I cannot know in some impossible mystical absolute fashion that my conclusions are utterly correct now and forever. Within this context though I can know with all the certainty that is in fact possible to human beings.
>Another thing I've been meaning to ask you for quite some time: what >is ARI ? The Ayn Rand Institute perhaps ? And why is it so important ? >Is it the official mouthpiece of Objectivism ?
Sometimes I have the paranoid idea that those out to destroy Objectivism have hit upon the excellent strategy of pretending to be its strongest defenders. From that position they then proceed to establish seemingly logical but utterly wrong philosophical positions. They defend these positions as being not subject to testing by reality and even condemn all those with the wit to follow the argument who disagree as being immoral(!?). These positions turn off the most promising minds that are attracted to Objectivism and over time leave mostly only the sheep. This appears to happen regardless of whether or not some person or group is at the heart of it. But yes, ARI is as close to an "official" voice of Objectivism as we have today.
>The law of identity says that everything (every entity, attribute, etc.) is >what it is, is something specific, something definite.
I think the mistake is in the "attribute etc". Everthing that exists is certainly something definite, but when you speak or attributes you cross into the area of man's limited knowledge and perceptions, into epistemology.
>To claim that the size of something (for example) is infinite is to say that >no matter what specific size you name, the thing in question is bigger.
Excellent definition. Fancied up a bit with symbols this would go well in any math book.
>Used in this sense, "infinity" is not a number, it is not specific, not >definite - i.e., it is a quantity with no _identity_,
Yes it is not a number in the sense of counting on your toes, but you have just defined it very precisely. That is its identity.
>which is a violation >of the law of identity, and hence impossible. Put another way, such a claim >is an attempt to say about a thing's size that "it is" without the "it".
If the universe is infinite, the "it" is the universe. I still don't see the problem.
Robert Kolker wrote in message <6jelbm$...@news-central.tiac.net>... > I think not. Countably infinite referes to the cardinality > of a set of objects that can be put in one to one correspondence > with the set of integers. Are there infinitely many of any > kind of thing in the physical cosmos? I have seen no evidence > to that effect.
What I refer to is that which the universe seems to have in common with the set of integers, namely that no matter how much of it is explored there is more. The universe is continually expanding. The realm of knowledge seems to me to qualify as being infinite. The amount to know is not finite. What error, if any, am I making?
Question: Does the universe expand at the speed of light? If not, then how could a universe that is 15 billion years old that are that far away from us? At least it would have had to expand at half of light speed it seems (perhaps naively) to me.
In article <6jht70$r0...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, "Samantha Atkins" <saman...@theLove.org> wrote:
>Question: Does the universe expand at the speed of light? If not, then >how could a universe that is 15 billion years old that are that far away >from us? At least it would have had to expand at half of light speed it >seems (perhaps naively) to me.
You have to be clear about what you mean by "the speed at which the universe expands." There is no boundary moving outward at some speed. In relativistic cosmologies, there is a "radius of curvature" parameter (call it "a") for both open (spatially infinite) and closed (spatially finite) universes. The theories tell you the rate at which "a" changes with time.
One of my textbooks shows that in a typical model, "a" is proportional to the 2/3 power of t.
The formula for "a" depends on some parameters that are not readily measured, but if you take the rate of change of "a" divided by "a", (ie, (1/a)da/dt), you get none other than the Hubble constant, H, which is roughly equal in magnitude to 1/(age of the universe). H is computed by dividing the recessional velocity of distant galaxies with their distance from earth.
In article <6jeibq$cb...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, "Samantha Atkins" <saman...@theLove.org> wrote:
>A question I don't know how to approach with my limited scientific >knowledge: In the infinite gravity well of a black hole wouldn't the >acceleration due to gravity be infinite and thus would not velocities far in >excess of a mere finite value like c, the speed of light, be attainable? >Just a curious question way too late at night.
No. In relativity theory, velocities of material objects only approach the speed of light, never reach it. The energy can increase without limit, but not the speed. This is very well confirmed for small objects, like the electrons in your TV's picture tube.
>>Ah. But at any particular time, T, after the Big Bang, the universe is >>guaranteed to be at a finite size. This was all I was trying to assert. >Ah, but you are wrong.
Very clever comeback. Now will someone PLEASE back up an assertion with an argument?
>You have to be clear about what you mean by "the speed at which >the universe expands." There is no boundary moving outward at some >speed. In relativistic cosmologies, there is a "radius of curvature" >parameter (call it "a") for both open (spatially infinite) and closed >(spatially finite) universes. The theories tell you the rate at which >"a" changes with time.
Just to clarify, is this model sort of like blowing up a balloon that has no outside? That is, you don't actually add any space to the universe, you just stretch the space that's already there?
Infinite has more than one definition, as do most words, e.g.: infinite: not capable of definition, not countable infinite: limited perhaps, but not countable by humans infinite: pertaining to reified concepts that cannot, by their nature, be limited, but which, also by their nature, cannot be said to describe anything real.
The middle definition is perhaps what we keep bumping up against. The first and third definitions are perhaps the ones that we confuse and refuse to admit what we are doing.
But I really want to know, how did the objects near the present boundary of the universe (NOT THE BOUNDARY ITSELF, THE OBJECTS!) reach their position so that they sent back light which we are only now receiving, if at the time they sent the light, they were so much closer (to the center of the alleged big bang, and thus closer to the material that we are sitting on to observe from)?
Samantha Atkins wrote: > What I refer to is that which the universe seems to have in common with the > set of integers, namely that no matter how much of it is explored there is > more. The universe is continually expanding. The realm of knowledge > seems to me to qualify as being infinite. The amount to know is not finite. > What error, if any, am I making?
> Question: Does the universe expand at the speed of light? If not, then > how could a universe that is 15 billion years old that are that far away > from us? At least it would have had to expand at half of light speed it > seems (perhaps naively) to me.
>how did the objects near the present boundary >of the universe ... reach their position so that >they sent back >light which we are only now receiving, if at the time they sent the >light, they were >so much closer (to the center of the alleged big bang, and thus closer >to the material >that we are sitting on to observe from)?
Say the object you are asking about is 10 billion light years away and the big bang happened 15 billion years ago (to use definite numbers). The light would we are now seeing from the object would have been emitted 10 billions years ago when the universe was 1/3 it's current size. This sounds strange, I admit. If at the time of emission we were only 3.3 biilion LY from the object why did it take the light 10 billion years to get here? The answer is that it an affect of red shift. Now and at the time of emission we would be traveling 2/3 of light speed relative to the object (slight variations in speed depending on details of model universe, but the essential point is not changed). This makes it take "3 times" as long for the light to get here as compared to what it would take if the universe were not expanding.
That's as close as I can come in words today. The details are in the math and inasmuch as the math is logically axiomatic it is consistent so there is not contradiction, only an apparent contradiction when the facts of reality are expressed in the langauge of English. [Same point applies to my favorite bugbear, the second definition of infinity you provided}
>infinite: limited perhaps, but not countable by humans
In article <6jm1t4$r0...@sunburst.ccs.yorku.ca>, Jonathan Carryer <jcarr...@YorkU.CA> wrote:
>Just to clarify, is this model sort of like blowing up a balloon that >has no outside? That is, you don't actually add any space to the >universe, you just stretch the space that's already there?
Yes, that's just about it. The balloon has neiter an outside or an inside. There is just the surface of the balloon, which behaves like the surface of an ordinary balloon, and in particular, has no boundary. When it expands, you indeed stretch the space that's already there.
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